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Cape Town – Titans leg-spinner Imran Tahir has been tantalisingly included in the SA President’s XI to play the touring Australians in a three-day warm-up match at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom from Friday.
The match had originally been intended to feature the SA ‘A’ side against Ricky Ponting’s visitors, but many of the potential local candidates are committed to the drawn-out Standard Bank Pro20 knockout phase – both semi-finals have gone to third legs.
“We have restricted our choice largely to players from the Bizhub Highveld Lions and Nashua Titans,” said selection convenor Mike Procter on Tuesday. “There is some very exciting talent in this team and I am confident they will give a very good account of themselves.”
Opening batsman Alviro Petersen of the Lions leads the side, which includes further players with full international experience in big-hitting Gulam Bodi and Vaughn van Jaarsveld.
The latter will be keen to atone for a reasonably wretched maiden tour of Australia for the otherwise victorious SA one-day side.
Bodi could be considered a slightly dubious choice for a first-class fixture of this nature, given that his speciality is very much the abbreviated format, and some critics feel he has been unlucky to be overlooked for the Proteas’ ODI or T20 sides of late.
But if anybody is capable, on a good day, of denting the egos of a touring Test team’s attack, it is the dashing Titans left-hander.
The really exciting choice, though, is his Centurion team-mate Imran Tahir. The leg-spinner, born in Lahore but married to a South African, qualifies to play for the Proteas from April 1.
So how he performs against such top-notch opposition at Potchefstroom will be very keenly viewed by Procter and company.
Tahir, who does not always play for the Titans in one-day cricket, is fresh off a match haul of 10/132 (7/94 in the second innings) in a SAA Provincial Challenge three-day match for Easterns against Boland at Paarl.
Generally, the Aussies can have no complaints about the calibre of opposition they will encounter in their only warm-up before the first Test at the Wanderers.
There are seven Titans representatives – including another highly promising prospect in seemingly nerveless all-rounder Roelof van der Merwe – and this franchise has tended to be the powerhouse of South African cricket in the past year or two.
They were unlucky to be bedevilled by the weather in their latest Pro20 campaign, a key factor in failing to make the last four.
Tearaway paceman Craig Alexander of the Lions is another worth studying in this match.
The Australians were yet to decide, at the time of writing, whether to field a shadow Test XI at Senwes Park – they will want to gauge vice-captain Michael Clarke’s troublesome back condition after the long-haul flight, for one thing.
SA President’s XI:
Alviro Petersen (Lions, captain), Craig Alexander (Lions), Gulam Bodi (Titans), Imraan Khan (Dolphins), Heino Kuhn (Titans), Ethy Mbhalati (Titans), Blake Snijman (Titans), Imran Tahir (Titans), Roelof van der Merwe (Titans), Vaughn van Jaarsveld (Lions), David Wiese (Titans)
Cape Town – Titans leg-spinner Imran Tahir has been tantalisingly included in the SA President’s XI to play the touring Australians in a three-day warm-up match at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom from Friday.
The match had originally been intended to feature the SA ‘A’ side against Ricky Ponting’s visitors, but many of the potential local candidates are committed to the drawn-out Standard Bank Pro20 knockout phase – both semi-finals have gone to third legs.
“We have restricted our choice largely to players from the Bizhub Highveld Lions and Nashua Titans,” said selection convenor Mike Procter on Tuesday. “There is some very exciting talent in this team and I am confident they will give a very good account of themselves.”
Opening batsman Alviro Petersen of the Lions leads the side, which includes further players with full international experience in big-hitting Gulam Bodi and Vaughn van Jaarsveld.
The latter will be keen to atone for a reasonably wretched maiden tour of Australia for the otherwise victorious SA one-day side.
Bodi could be considered a slightly dubious choice for a first-class fixture of this nature, given that his speciality is very much the abbreviated format, and some critics feel he has been unlucky to be overlooked for the Proteas’ ODI or T20 sides of late.
But if anybody is capable, on a good day, of denting the egos of a touring Test team’s attack, it is the dashing Titans left-hander.
The really exciting choice, though, is his Centurion team-mate Imran Tahir. The leg-spinner, born in Lahore but married to a South African, qualifies to play for the Proteas from April 1.
So how he performs against such top-notch opposition at Potchefstroom will be very keenly viewed by Procter and company.
Tahir, who does not always play for the Titans in one-day cricket, is fresh off a match haul of 10/132 (7/94 in the second innings) in a SAA Provincial Challenge three-day match for Easterns against Boland at Paarl.
Generally, the Aussies can have no complaints about the calibre of opposition they will encounter in their only warm-up before the first Test at the Wanderers.
There are seven Titans representatives – including another highly promising prospect in seemingly nerveless all-rounder Roelof van der Merwe – and this franchise has tended to be the powerhouse of South African cricket in the past year or two.
They were unlucky to be bedevilled by the weather in their latest Pro20 campaign, a key factor in failing to make the last four.
Tearaway paceman Craig Alexander of the Lions is another worth studying in this match.
The Australians were yet to decide, at the time of writing, whether to field a shadow Test XI at Senwes Park – they will want to gauge vice-captain Michael Clarke’s troublesome back condition after the long-haul flight, for one thing.
SA President’s XI:
Alviro Petersen (Lions, captain), Craig Alexander (Lions), Gulam Bodi (Titans), Imraan Khan (Dolphins), Heino Kuhn (Titans), Ethy Mbhalati (Titans), Blake Snijman (Titans), Imran Tahir (Titans), Roelof van der Merwe (Titans), Vaughn van Jaarsveld (Lions), David Wiese (Titans)
